On 19 November, a Brussels Airlines Airbus A330-300 (registered OO-SFG) operated flight SN501 between Brussels, Belgium and New York JFK, United States.
The flight was about 130 kilometres off the south coast of Ireland at around 12:10 at FL370 when the pilot issued a Pan-pan radio message to declare an emergency and informed air traffic controllers of the situation, a problem with one of the jet’s two Trent 772 engines. The engine was shut down and the aircraft descended to FL230.
The crew of the Airbus A330-300 jet had originally opted to divert to Shannon Airport, but eventually was directed to Dublin Airport, where it landed safely on runway 28L.
Mark Coenegracht, one of the passengers, explained to Belgian newspaper Het Laatste Nieuws that the in-flight entertainment system was failing but that he didn’t notice anything else. He added that passengers entered the terminal and that they are now awaiting further instructions to continue their journey.
UPDATE 20 NOVEMBER
The 154 passengers and 10 crew spent the night in a hotel in Dublin. The next day, 20 November, as explained in our forum, a Brussels Airlines A320 registered OO-SNL was ferried to Dublin (flight SN9905 arriving in Dublin at 08:30) to pick up the stranded passengers and carry them to Paris CDG (flight SN1502, departure 11:50, arrival 14:10), where they were put on other flights to New York JFK. Flight SN1502 then returned to Brussels.
UPDATE 21 NOVEMBER
The flights from Paris to New York were overcrowded, dozens of passengers spent a second night in hotels abroad, this time in Paris.
Maybe Brussels Airlines should pay more attention to updating their fleet instead of investing the millions in tax payers money bailed out in repainting their old inefficient aircrafts.
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